Model Education
When Decentralization Works: Leadership, Local Needs, and Student Achievement
Kirabo Jackson
NBER Working Paper, September 2025
Abstract:
This paper studies when decentralization improves public service delivery. I analyze a Chicago reform that awarded select principals greater autonomy over budgets and operations while holding resources largely unchanged. A meta-analysis of similar reforms shows substantial heterogeneity, including both positive and negative effects. Building on insights from public finance, contract design, and psychology, I argue that the returns to autonomy depend on the capacity of local decision-makers (i.e., principals in this context) and the alignment of their objectives with those of central authorities. Event-study estimates show that, on average, increased autonomy improved achievement by about 0.1 standard deviations, effects comparable to resource-intensive interventions but achieved at minimal cost. However, deconvolution analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity, with both negative and positive effects. Design-based evidence supports the theoretical predictions; high-performing principals benefit more, reallocating resources effectively (e.g., reducing class sizes), and schools with atypical student populations benefit more and may tailor services to local needs. These results highlight that local capacity, aligned incentives, and heterogeneity are central to the success of decentralization reforms.
I Promise to Work Hard: The Impact of a Non-Binding Commitment Pledge on Academic Performance
Nicholas Wright, Puneet Arora & Jesse Wright
Education Finance and Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
Students often start a course with high expectations and an ambitious plan of action. Some instructors use goal-inducing, non-binding commitment pledges to nudge students to follow through on their intended course of action. Using a field experiment, we asked treated students to set a goal grade, identify the actions they would take to achieve it, and sign a commitment pledge to work towards this grade. We find that treated students pledged a greater time commitment and targeted a higher grade, but their overall test scores decreased by 0.23 standard deviations, and they were 15 percentage points less likely to pass the course.
Should States Reduce Teacher Licensing Requirements? Evidence from the Rise of For-Profit Training Programs in Texas
Christa Deneault & Evan Riehl
NBER Working Paper, September 2025
Abstract:
We provide a comprehensive analysis of a Texas policy that relaxed teacher licensing requirements and created a large for-profit training industry. Using detailed administrative data, we show that for-profit-trained teachers have higher turnover and lower value-added than standard-trained teachers. But the policy significantly increased the supply of certified teachers, reducing schools' reliance on uncertified teachers with even worse outcomes. Exploiting variation in policy exposure across schools, we find a zero net impact on student achievement due to these offsetting forces. Thus lower licensing requirements improved access to teaching and reduced training costs without harming students.
More Girls, Fewer Blues: Peer Gender Ratios and Adolescent Mental Health
Monica Deza & Maria Zhu
NBER Working Paper, September 2025
Abstract:
Using individual-level data from the Add Health surveys, we leverage idiosyncratic variation in gender composition across cohorts within the same school to examine whether being exposed to a higher share of female peers affects mental health and school satisfaction. We find that being exposed to a higher proportion of female peers, despite only improving school satisfaction for boys, improves mental health for both boys and girls. The benefits are greater among boys of low socioeconomic backgrounds, who would otherwise be more likely to be exposed to violent and disruptive peers. We find suggestive evidence that the mechanisms driving our findings are consistent with stronger school friendships for boys and better self-image and grades for girls.
School Districts as Invasive Actors in a Market School Choice Environment
David Garcia, Matthew Hom & Anabel Aportela
Educational Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the classic school choice market model, school districts are conceived as exerting competitive pressure on each other by improving conditions in the schools and programs within their boundaries. In this article, we examine an invasive action where a school district increased student enrollment by actively bussing students from within another district’s boundaries (bussing district), an invasive action that deviates from the classic school choice market model. In our focused analysis of three Phoenix elementary districts using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the bussing district realized a “bump” of 44.7 students on average per school, after controlling for distance and school quality, via transporting students directly from within its neighbor district’s boundaries. The findings may portend more aggressive actions that mirror the market behaviors of charter schools as districts face declining student enrollment counts due to the proliferation of market reforms that increase competition.
The Impact of a Genetic Predisposition to a Higher BMI on Education Outcomes
Jane Greve et al.
NBER Working Paper, October 2025
Abstract:
This paper contributes to the literature on the impact of early-life health on education by estimating the effect of genetic predisposition to a higher body mass index (BMI) on educational attainment and related outcomes. The identification strategy exploits the randomness in which genes one inherits from one's parents by estimating sibling fixed effects models of the polygenic score for a higher BMI. These models are estimated using rich administrative data from Denmark for over 14,000 full siblings. We find that a one-standard-deviation increase in the genetic predisposition to a higher BMI is associated with a 1.4 percentage point (4.4%) lower probability of earning a high school diploma, a 1.7 percentage point (12.3%) lower probability of a college degree, and a 1.7 percentage point (3.7%) higher probability of vocational training. An investigation into mechanisms suggests that youth with a greater genetic predisposition to a higher BMI are more likely to report being bullied, have greater school absences, and lower test scores.
Who Rides Out the Storm? The Immediate Post-College Transition and its Role in Socioeconomic Earnings Gaps
Judith Scott-Clayton et al.
NBER Working Paper, October 2025
Abstract:
Despite a large earnings premium for bachelor’s degree completion in general, graduates from low-income families earn substantially less than graduates from high-income families. While prior research has documented the role of college quality and major choice in explaining these gaps, we examine undermatching on a different margin: the first (post-college) job transition. The transition from college to the labor market can be challenging to navigate, and students with financial, informational, or other disadvantages during the job search may be more likely to “undermatch” to their first job. Using administrative data from a large, urban, public college system, we document large gaps in earnings five years after graduation by SES (proxied by financial aid receipt) that remain unexplained even after controlling for GPA, college, field of study, and other pre-graduation characteristics. We then examine how features of the initial job transition relate to longer-term earnings, and to what extent differences in the first job transition can explain later SES earnings gaps. Our results show that first job transitions are rocky for many graduates, strongly predict earnings at Year 5, and are a substantial mediator of socioeconomic gaps in earnings five years after college graduation -- reducing the unexplained gap by almost two-thirds.
College Loans and Human Capital Investment
Chao Fu, Hsuan-Chih (Luke) Lin & Atsuko Tanaka
NBER Working Paper, September 2025
Abstract:
College loans serve as a double-edged sword for human capital investment: While they facilitate access to education, the burden of repayment may distort post-education investments in human capital. We examine the role of college loans and loan repayment policies through a structural model in which heterogeneous individuals, faced with borrowing limits, make dynamic decisions on consumption, borrowing/saving, labor supply, and costly human capital investment (via both college education and on-the-job learning a la Ben-Porath (1967)). We estimate two versions of the model using data from the NLSY79: one with natural borrowing limits and another with parameterized limits. Counterfactual simulations based on both models suggest that, relative to the standard fixed repayment plan, income-driven repayment (IDR) plans modestly increase educational attainment, lifetime earnings, and individual welfare. Although some generous IDR plans may result in losses for the loan program itself, overall government revenue is higher under IDRs than under the standard repayment plan when lifetime income taxes are accounted for, creating a win-win scenario for both individual welfare and government revenue.
Effects of Heterogeneous Versus Homogeneous Grouping of English Learners’ Language and Literacy Development: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial
Michael Kieffer et al.
American Educational Research Journal, October 2025, Pages 909-945
Abstract:
In this preregistered within-teacher randomized controlled trial (n = 84), we tested the effects of grouping English learners (ELs) in homogeneous groups (all ELs) versus heterogeneous groups (ELs and non-ELs) on language, reading comprehension, and argumentative writing. Findings indicated no significant main effects of grouping. However, preregistered moderation analyses indicated that heterogeneous groups benefited students with higher English language skills (Hedges’ g = 0.27–0.59 or 0.75–1.93 grade equivalents), whereas homogeneous groups benefited students with lower English skills (g = 0.31–0.58 or 1.00–1.55 grade equivalents). Instructional observations indicated that teachers provided more specialized strategies for ELs in homogeneous groups and more authentic questions for students in heterogeneous groups. Findings question the default use of homogeneous grouping and support considering English proficiency when making instructional and policy decisions for EL instruction.
Statebuilding for Active Citizenship: Structuring Institutions of Public Education in Antebellum New York State
Gail Radford & Stephen Hart
Studies in American Political Development, October 2025, Pages 243-258
Abstract:
This article tells the story of how high-ranking officials in New York State, during the early nineteenth century, designed and revised an institutional structure for a statewide public school system that offered, even demanded, a significant role for local residents in governing and operating their schools. This statebuilding initiative was pursued with equal vigor by members of the various political factions of the time. The educational system it produced was built by government action, rather than primarily growing out of civil-societal forces and voluntary/spontaneous efforts. Politicians in charge of the system consistently tried to encourage citizen engagement. Their goal was not just to improve the schools, but also to enhance self-government in American life more generally. The story anticipates debates in the contemporary field of theory and practice known as participatory governance, contributing to discussions about the possibilities for meaningful citizen control within large bureaucratic structures. Since participatory democracy presupposes and relies upon policy feedbacks, the article discusses feedbacks that emerged -- or were hoped for but did not -- and how they facilitated or obstructed participatory goals. It also contributes to scholarship on the activism of nineteenth-century government and speaks to conversations in the history of American education.